The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - By Joshilyn Jackson Page 0,105
home.”
He tipped his baseball cap at Laurel and then stretched his arms up over his head, his torso elongating so that his ribs stuck out. Louis turned away, and Raydee followed him back toward the truck they’d been messing with. Thalia drove on.
“We should have asked how long ago they saw Sissi’s car,” David said.
Thalia released a scoffing chuckle. “He said ‘a while,’ David, and it’s not like either of those boys owns a watch.”
She drove the most direct route to Harold Street, leaving the paved roads twice to scoot through narrow gravel paths between mobile homes. Laurel scanned the lots, looking for Shelby’s bright hair.
Sissi’s trailer was one of the few places in DeLop that didn’t have some version of fencing. Her broad-shouldered brindle dog, Mitchell, was on a chain by the door. He was lying under one of Sissi’s raggedy pinwheels. The afternoon was so still that none of the gaudy wheels moved, and the wind socks hung limp. Mitchell lifted his head and stared at them as they pulled up.
As they were getting out of the car, Sissi opened the door and stood framed in it, glaring at them.
“She said she had alla y’all’s permissions,” Sissi said, preemptively defensive. “Bet and her both looked me in my eye and tole me. Now Shirl and Ruby come over, tellin’ me the sheriff done drived by twice’d now, pullin’ into my yard. Why’s that, is what I’d like to know.”
“Are they here?” Laurel said, striding angrily across the stretch of dirt and trash and gravel Sissi had instead of a lawn. Mitchell stood in a single fluid motion. He was probably eighty pounds, with a deep chest and a back end so skinny she could see the cut, lean muscle under his dirty coat. She felt his gaze, yellow and assessing, on the skin of her bare neck. She forced herself to stop and turned to him. “Hey, Mitchell. There’s that good boy.”
“Down, Mitchie,” Sissi hollered at him, and he sank to his belly, shoulders still tensed.
“Is Shelby inside?” Laurel said.
“Is that sheriff coming back?” Sissi countered. “Do I need to maybe pick up a little?”
Laurel felt her hands clenching. “Sissi,” she began, but Thalia interrupted, talking smoothly over her.
“I’d tuck things away, Sis, but I don’t expect there’s any need to go getting rid of anything. We weren’t sure Shel had come up here until now. We’ve got people looking all over Florida, not just up here.”
“Well, she ain’t inside,” said Sissi. “Bet’s showing her around.”
“Oh, God,” Laurel said. She needed to sit down. Her blood had gone thin and cold, and it couldn’t get good oxygen to her. David had come up behind her, and now he put one arm around her, shoring her up.
“How long ago?” Thalia asked.
Sissi shrugged and said, “They can’t have got far. No place to go, anyways. Bet wanted Shelby to get her cards read over to Moff’s. Try there.”
“This is my husband, David,” Laurel said. “He’s going to stay here in case the girls get back, okay?”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Sissi said. She and Mitchell stared David down together, equally suspicious.
Thalia said, “If the sheriff comes again, he’ll be wanting to talk to David, not you. If David’s here, he could go on out and square the sheriff away. Sheriff wouldn’t even need to come inside.”
Sissi’s eyes narrowed, but she nodded. David opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again.
They’d decided in the car who would do what. Without Mother along, Thalia could do a better job of blending here. She could mimic posture and speech patterns, and The Folks were often more at ease in her company than in Laurel’s, so Thalia would go to their relatives’ houses. Laurel would do a circuit of DeLop, hitting all the small back roads and dead ends, looking for Shelby outside. David was to stay at Sissi’s. He hadn’t been happy about it, but nothing else made sense. He didn’t know the landscape or the people.
“Call me as soon as you find her,” he said, and walked slowly past Mitchell. The dog watched his every step.
Sissi scootched over a molecule to let David get past her into the trailer. “Don’t you feed him any?” she called to Laurel.
“Throw me your keys, Sissi,” Thalia said. “Be faster to drive to Moff’s.”
DeLop was small, but the houses were spread thinly around two sides of the Frog Hole, with close woods and wilderness between the clumps.